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TAG Heuer Night Racer review

It costs yay much, old version of Android, insensitive screen,
average-at-best camera

Price

£3,250

6 / 10

We're used to a sharp intake of breath when one of the big manufacturers announces the price of its latest hero handset -- and that's if the price is north of £500.

But TAG Heuer seems to be trying to give us all a collective attack of the vapours with its latest branded handset -- the Night Racer is £3,250 to you, squire.

For that you get a very nice box, charger, headphones, data cable, and of course, a TAG Heuer-branded phone. It's actually one of a pair, the other being the Sport Classic (a comparative bargain at just £2,650), which is much the same phone, but with a different casing and finish.

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Design The Night Racer is a chunky beast, in keeping with many of the luxury brand's watches, and made from premium materials, including stainless steel, carbon fibre and aeronautic-grade titanium. The casing is designed to be shockproof, and it certainly feels extremely heavy and sturdy, though it isn't waterproof. What look like large speaker grilles along the top are actually only there for aesthetic reasons -- the real speaker is around the back and sounds a bit weedy, with limited tolerance for bass.

The SIM and microSD cards (8GB as standard) sit behind a very sturdy door that opens via a switch on the side.

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It certainly looks like a premium product. But does the technology match the quality casing and aesthetics?

Performance In a word, no. The 3.5-inch capacitive touchscreen sits behind tough Gorilla Glass but only offers a so-so resolution of 480x800 pixels. It's okay, but far from ground-breaking, and it isn't always as sensitive as it could be either, especially towards the edges, which sit deep beneath the surrounding fascia.

Perhaps of more concern, it's running Android 2.3 Gingerbread -- hardly cutting edge since we're already up to 4.1 Jelly Bean. There are a few TAG-only apps available, including audio effects with a five-band graphic equaliser and Mobile Security, which bundles anti-virus, anti-theft (data wipe, GPS find etc) and other programs to protect your investment.

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You have over half a million apps to choose from on Google Play of course, but TAG has also added SoApps, which essentially offers a selection of a few dozen apps that the company considers will particularly appeal to its customers, arranged in convenient categories for shopping, travel, productivity and games etc.

The single-core 1GHz processor handles its duties well enough, but does show occasional signs of lag when multitasking. The five-megapixel camera comes with autofocus, but no flash and little in the way of other features. There's a basic VGA camera on the front for video calls too.

The battery held up surprisingly well though, delivering almost two days of fairly solid use.

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Conclusion The TAG Heuer Night Racer is running an old version of Android, has a middling screen and a so-so processor. It's bulky and even a bit look-at-me ostentatious, but there's no doubt that it's TAG. Is it worth over £3K of your hard-earned? Of course not.